This invention relates to roller-type Gramophone record cleaners having a sticky surface adapted to pick up dirt or dust from inside the grooves provided in the record surface as the roller is passed thereover, and more particularly to such rollers having the sticky layer formed of a certain rubbery organopolysiloxane elastomer.
In order to remove dust, dirt and other contataminants from the surface of a Gramophone record to obtain a good quality of reproduced sounds and a prolonged life of the record, there have been proposed a variety of methods.
One example that is the simplest method is to remove dust and the like by a brush or with an air jet stream ejected from the nozzle of a rubber syringe or the like, or in combination. These methods are naturally ineffective when the dust or dirt to be removed is more or less adhesive to the record surface. Hence, an alternative proposal is to wipe away dust and the like with a wet cloth or cotton gauze. This alternative method may be effective in the removal of contaminants, but is disadvantageous because of the eventual rubbing of the record surface with abrasive contaminants and is inconvenient in having to dry the wet record disk before putting it on the Gramophone.
A further example of commercially available record wipers is something like a blackboard eraser in shape, having a surface covered with a hairy fabric, such as velveteen. This wiper is considerably effective in picking up tiny dust particles from inside the grooves, but is disadvantageous because of the tendency of the picked-up dust particles to accumulate under the wiper in a narrow line, and to be left on the record surface when the wiper is lifted off.
Recently, a roller-type cleaner has been introduced, which is constructed with a roller of plastics or other materials, wound around with multiple turns of a tape with its adhesive surface facing outward, the adhesive-covered roller being rotatably supported on a bracket with a handle attached to the bracket, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,958,292. This roller-type cleaner is moved over the surface of a record with its roller rotating around the axis, so that dust or dirt depositing on the record surface is picked up and retained by the surface of the adhesive tape, leaving the record surface free of any contamination. Thus, the cleaning operations are repeated and, when the outermost surface of the adhesive tape has become choked with contaminants, the corresponding layer of tape is peeled off and severed to give a clean adhesive surface for subsequent use.
The above roller-type device may eliminate some disadvantages of the prior art cleaners, but it still has a problem that the end of the peeled and severed tape forms a different level as against the level of the underlying layer, and hence a very local unevenness on the roller surface, resulting in incomplete removal of contaminants from the record surface. Such formation of different levels may be avoided by using a very thin adhesive tape, but the thinner tape has less mechanical strength, making it difficult to peel smoothly. Furthermore, the smaller the diameter of the roller, the more often the replacement of its surface is necessitated, which causes more inconveniences in refilling the roller with a clean covering or re-winding the adhesive tape on the empty roller which is rather laborious. As such, the known roller-type record cleaner has still more problems in practical operations.